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Dustin Payseur is a Lizard Person (And other reasons Beach Fossils is so cool)

Somersault, released in June, is Beach Fossils’ first venture into collective writing and recording, but you’d never know by listening to it. Venturing beyond the instantly classic sun-washed, surf-via-Brooklyn sound of frontman Dustin Payseur’s earlier releases, the album effortlessly incorporates new elements like strings, prominent brass, and even spoken word contributed by Cities Aviv to create an incredibly well-balanced record.

The collaborative energy doesn’t just stay on the album, Beach Fossils is clearly enjoying their tour, playing impromptu bits of Oasis, The Beach Boys and a few more during their set. On stage and in our interview at the Loving Touch in Ferndale, Dustin, Tommy, and Jack were clearly ready to crack a few jokes and talk about what makes Beach Fossils so undeniably cool. Below is a transcript of our interview.

At WCBN [FM Ann Arbor: we put radio on the internet], we like to start things off with a light icebreaker. Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill JFK, and why or why not?

Jack: I don’t think anybody will ever know. Because I wasn’t even there, so like . . .

Dustin: Yeah, nobody will ever know, mysteries of the universe.

Lindsey (of Snail Mail): That’s like basically asking are you a conspiracy theorist

What’s your favorite conspiracy theory?

Dustin: That I’m a reptilian humanoid.

WCBN: Not just the New world order, but you in particular?

Dustin: Yeah yeah, like someone literally wrote a book [David Icke’s The Biggest Secret about how my family is reptilian humanoids. Like my specific family.

WCBN: On that note, we should get actual questions in

Dustin: No these are more fun, everybody asks about the music but you can find that shit on Google in twelve seconds.

Jack: What’s your sign?

What is your sign?

Jack: Taurus.

Dustin: Aquarius, but I don’t believe in it.

Tommy: Peace. Choose love.

Dustin (using pentagram ring to melt pentagrams into ice cubes): This one’s gonna be so sick! The ice started bubbling up underneath it, look at that one!

We noticed some clout goggles on Instagram, who in the band has the most clout?

Dustin (immeditely): Me.

Jack: Clouty with a Chance of Meatballs.

Tommy: I think it’d have to be . . .

Dustin: No it’s me. I’m head clout master.

Tommy: Well here’s the thing, is that I have the most MySpace and Livejournal followers of the group.

WCBN: Okay but who has the most Datpiff followers?

Jack: Wait what’s Datpiff?

Dustin: It’s for mixtapes, it’s the s**t. It’s sick. There’s a lot of good s**t on Datpiff.

Tommy: I think the next level is just going back to the first meme, the origin of that, and then the genuine humor you get from that is the second level of Post. They’re gonna come back genuinely and that’s the new irony. It’s always binary, it’s irony and then it becomes genuine and that’s the second level irony but then the odd number again of irony is going re-ironic. You keep on going, it’s a binary situation, it oscillates.

So you all just got back from your European tour, how was that?

Jack: It was good, it was a long tour, like five weeks. We went a lot of places, did a lot of things, I got punched in the face.

WCBN: Where and why?

Jack: In Amsterdam, I was just drunk and walking, he was on a Vespa with his friends. They were trying to go through us all aggressively. I got out of the way but I was like hey that’s crazy and I went like this [slapped] at the Vespa and he didn’t like that. He was also like twice my height. Cheap shot.

WCBN: So just a punch or the whole group got in on it?

Dustin: I would have but I wasn’t there.

Jack: Yeah we’re probably lucky he wasn’t there because he would’ve gone in on him.

If you could pick a name what would it be?

Jack: I wouldn’t want the name S**thouse.

Dustin: I could make any name work.

S**thouse: Your first name could be Privates.

Dustin: If Tommy could pick a name it’d be something really long, and it’d be like the thirteenth or something and it would sound super 1700s. Or he would just say Chip or something.

My parents almost named me Thorne, I kind of wish they did it.

(Tommy walks back in)

Tommy: If I could pick a name that I didn’t want it’d be like either Jackson or Desabaesor. Be a leper of society.

It's Hot In Here

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